Everett Fires Staff, Hires Staff, Heads Off Into Summer

It’s the last week of classes at Everett Middle School, and life is hectic for the school’s principal, Richard Curci. He’s accidentally triple-booked himself for a meeting, and by 2 p.m. he still hasn’t eaten lunch. He has, however, finally managed to get rid of half of the teaching staff.

Not that he wanted to get rid of them. But last year the San Francisco Unified School District applied for, and got, a $45 million grant from the federal government for the city’s lowest-performing schools. In the Mission, Horace Mann, Cesar Chavez, Mission High, Bryant Elementary and Everett all qualified. But there was a catch. To get the money, the schools needed to agree to make significant changes — a new principal, if the principal had been there more than two years. And, in the case of both Everett and Bryant Elementary, replacing 50 percent of the school’s teachers.

How to get rid of half your staff?

Curci met with each teacher one on one. He explained the job description for teaching at a well-funded school — writing an “improvement plan” for each student, working longer hours, including two more hours a month doing “professional development” (e.g., taking courses in classroom management or working with English-language-learner [ELL] students).